Analyzing Efficient Leadership and Global Business Transformation

This report examines the critical role of efficient leadership in the global business context, focusing on the impact of decision-making and leadership styles on organizational growth. It analyzes a real-world scenario involving Jack Ma and the controversial '996' work culture in China, evaluating his leadership approach and its consequences. The report explores different leadership styles, including transactional and autocratic approaches, and their effectiveness in motivating employees and driving organizational success. It also considers the importance of factors such as employee well-being, work-life balance, and adherence to regulations. The analysis highlights the need for leaders to be collaborative, compassionate, and inclusive, with a focus on employee welfare and open communication. The report concludes with recommendations for aspiring global leaders, emphasizing the importance of building a collaborative work environment, understanding employee needs, and ensuring the active participation of employees in decision-making. It underscores the need for leaders to prioritize the well-being of their employees and to act as role models by adhering to ethical and legal standards.

Running head: IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
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1IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
Executive summary
This paper aims to analyse the importance and impact of decision-making as well as
execution of certain planning and action of the leaders in the global business context. In this
paper, the evaluation of a leader’s decision-making and its impact is done to get the
knowledge about the importance of the effective leadership quality to ensure the growth of
the organization in global business context. In conclusion, it can be stated that the leaders to
operate in global context must be more efficient and qualified than the leaders operating in
the domestic business context. To run effectively in global context of business the leaders are
required to equip with multiple extra qualifications such as they must practice the honesty,
compassionate and collaborative with the employees. They must stick to the rules and
regulation to establish loyalty in others.

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Table of Contents
Introduction................................................................................................................................3
Discussion..................................................................................................................................3
The Event...............................................................................................................................3
The Leader and His Involvement...........................................................................................4
Analysis of the Situation and Leader.....................................................................................5
Leaders Participation in Situation and Outcome................................................................5
The Reason of Situation Occurrence and Outcome...........................................................6
Recommendation........................................................................................................................7
Conclusion..................................................................................................................................8
References................................................................................................................................10

3IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
Introduction
The effective leadership style performs an important role to the growth of any
organization (Hurduzeu, Raluca-Elena 2015). The leaders are responsible for planning,
initiating, directing as well as influencing the employees to deliver desired result. Leaders are
the ones who ensure the achievement of goals through coordinating with the employees
(Fernandez, Sergio, and Hal G. Rainey 2017). This paper aims to analyse a real scenario
handled by a real leader with how much efficiency. Then trying to reach to the conclusion
about the most effective leadership style required for success. In the next section of this
paper, a recent controversial event covered in media that is the ‘996’ work schedule in China
is presented. Then the involved leader that is Jack Ma’s activities and decision-making style,
which is responsible for the occurrence is observed as well as evaluated in respect to theories
on different leadership styles to understand the success or the failure of the event. Then the
attempt is made to determine the required effective leadership style for the proper
management of workers and in turn ensuring the growth of the organization. Finally, some
recommendations are given to the people wishing to thrive as the efficient leader in the global
business context.
Discussion
The Event
The introduction or the endorsement of the Chinese infamous working culture that is
the 12-hour workdays or the “996” works scheduling within the country’s biggest technology
company. The number ‘996’ refers to the culture of staying at office and work from 9am to
9pm, six days in a week, which is common in the countries IT sectors as well as the start-ups
in China (Business-standard.com 2019). In 14th April, 2019 in an extended blog in China’s
social website one of the most prosperous man of China as well as the co-founder of Alibaba

4IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
Group Hoilding Ltd commented in support of the 12 hours’ work culture of China’s
technology companies dismissing the traditional 8 hours official working style (CNN 2019).
This is greatly criticized as well as protested by the people worldwide in social media.
Multiple big e-commerce or the internet facility providing organization used to practice this
996-working schedule in spite of the legislation formed to reduce and stop the inhuman
practice of work stating that employees should not work much more than eight hours or 40
hours a week. However, some of the leading IT sectors in China still encouraging the
employees for overtime making it as the norm. This exhausting working practice is
supported as well as encouraged by the China’s technology sector because it is the key factor
for ensuring China’s sudden faster moving progress in recent times (Bloom, Mirko and Van
Reenen 2016). The employees are seduced with many facilities or forced indirectly to put
extra effort and made to work long to show their passion as well as loyalty towards the work.
The founder of Alibaba group comes under fire of huge criticism through endorsing this
inhumane work life.
The Leader and His Involvement
Jack Ma or Ma Yun is the China’s most wealthy and famous leader. He is a prominent
Chinese businessperson, philanthropist, co-founder and the chairperson of Alibaba Group and
the His comment on a blog became one of the important topics to talk about (Kim, Sora
2016). The Alibaba Group Founder in his blog lauded the ‘996’ culture of work and
confronted a lot of negative reaction from the critics and the commentators. He proposed that
if anyone were passionate about his work it would be easy to work longer or put extra effort
on that, rather it would be a blessing for the passionate employees to get the opportunity and
contribute into the work (J. Gorgievski, Antonio Moriano, and B. Bakker 2014). Whereas
according to him and many others if anyone is less interested much towards the task then
every minute will be tormenting for him and it will be impossible to remain attached to it. He

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literally praised the proposed practice of work, which has received huge objections in China.
Jack Ma tried to motivate the employees saying that if anyone is young and able to work hard
with more contribution then he should do that with any hesitation. According to him, success
comes only from consistency as well as contribution of some extra effort and time. He
announced that if anyone wants to join Alibaba he/she must be ready to adopt the office style
of 12 hours per day otherwise should not even think about to join the organization. Jack Ma
dismissed the traditional well-approved style of working for 8 hours through making the
statement in an internal meeting that Alibaba does not require the people with expectation
for the eight hours working style. Jack Ma considers that his introduced work culture has the
potentiality to determine the growth and essential for performing well.
Analysis of the Situation and Leader
Leaders Participation in Situation and Outcome
Jack Ma confronted all the criticism with efficiency and tried to establish his point of
view with constant support and deliberate effort as well as logic through which he has proved
his inborn leadership qualities of confidence and the patience as well as perseverance. Jack
Ma shows his motivating power through adoption of effective strategy to motivate potential
as well as existing employees to work hard. He tried to motivate them through convincing
them that success require extra effort and contribution (Jinping 2017). He also proved his
inspiring capacity evident in his effort to make them understand that passion for work makes
it possible and blissful to work hard and contribute more. He assured them that every extra
effort would bring them some reward. Thus, he proved his efficiency in directing and
motivating the employees as well as interested people to work with the organization. He also
proved his efficiency in communication through his proper address and delegation of his
point of view to the concerned people. He leaves the example of his determined decision-
making capability through his constant effort to establish his own view instead of strong

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protest. Apart from application of all these effective leadership attributes, this decision of
Jack Ma received strong criticism from not only the outside commentators but also the
internal people or the existing employees and causes partial failure of the initiative Jack Ma
intended to establish.
The Reason of Situation Occurrence and Outcome
Jack Ma’s proposed work culture did not get the approval from the various employees
working within and outside of the organization. The working schedule of 12-hours a day is
greatly criticized as well as protested by the people worldwide because according to all it is
inhumane in nature. This practice is the violation of the law in China where it is stated that
people should not work more than the 8 hours per day (Wired 2019). In China, this practice is
generally infamous as it caused excessive employee turnover, increased absenteeism and the
termination of the employees especially in IT sectors. Jack Ma in his decision did not
consider that balanced work life is essential for every human as a social being. Apart from
working, only they have to perform various mental as well as physical activities. All these
tasks require the enough sleep and rest because ultimately health is the most important
wealth, which can get detrimentally affected due to over timework (Nie, Otterbach, and
Sousa-Poza 2015). Jack Ma only considered much about the growth of his organization with
extra contribution from employees, tried to motivate them through offering the reward, and
acted like a transactional leader who concentrate on giving and taking only (Sharma and Jain
2013). Jack Ma tried to inspire the employees through communicating as well as making
them understand that in young age they should work hard without giving them valid reason
and direction for doing that. Jack Ma ignored the welfare of the employees and concentrated
on profit making. He tried to establish his preferred work culture without even considering
the preference of the people working for him and announced his decision like a dominating
autocratic leader (Rast III, Hogga and Giessnerb 2013). This approach did not give the sense

7IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
of security and familiarity to the employees, which is important for establishing the
connection between management and the employees. Jack Ma tried to measure the employee
loyalty and passion on basis of their effort and contribution without making them and giving
the reason to feel the passion for the work, which the charismatic or the transformational
leaders used to do (Mencl, Wefald and van Ittersum 2016). Jack Ma without discussing with
the employees dismissed the well approved work culture of eight hours as well as the people
supporting that and indirectly forced the employees to embrace the ‘996’ working schedule.
A leader must be the person to provide right direction and motive to workers with efficiency
through ensuring the co-ordination but Jack Ma did not follow this, exposed him as a
dominating leader, and cause the employee grievance. This is evident in statement of
employees where they claiming themselves as exploited. The intense stress that the
employees are used to take are evident on the existing past stories of the programmers and the
founders dying from intolerable stress. The IT worker’s protest through GitHub, community
of sharing code in online with the banner of 996.ICU referring the stress level as congenial
to send one to the ICU(Wired 2019). The leaders leading globally are required to stick to the
laws, which in turn will make the followers as loyal, but Jack Ma himself is violating the
‘anti-996’ law of the nation demanding the loyalty of the employees. All these faults of Jack
Ma as a leader contributed to the failure of his proposed decision-making. To succeed Jack
Ma must make proper decision, ensure collaboration as well as establish the congenial
environment for the employees like a charismatic leader, which is the most effective
leadership quality.
Recommendation
 To establish as a successful leader operating globally one must incorporate a
collaborative working environment where everyone will be encouraged to work
helping each other (Sullivan and Skelcher 2017).

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 The leader must have the skill to listen and understand the requirements of the
employees and must try to help with suggesting as well as giving the facilities
effective to resolute the problems.
 The leaders must ensure the inclusiveness within the organization, which requires the
allowance of active participation of employees in decision-making and knowledge as
well as idea sharing (Kalfagianni and Pattberg 2013).
 The most important requirement of the leaders is the compassion. The leaders must be
compassionate towards the employees ensuring the welfare and wellbeing (Neff and
Dahm 2015).
 Before making any decision, the leaders must acknowledge the impact or the
consequence it can create.
 The leaders must act with honesty and remain truthful towards both internal and
external people and policies as well as rules.
 The leader must be loyal in his conduct first to ensure the loyalty of the others.
 The leaders must be accountable to the concerned people for every step he/she takes.
 The leaders must communicate their planning and the views clearly to the employees
to make them aware about the contribution expected from them.
 The leader must inspire and motivate the employees through providing them proper
reason to be (Bird and Mendenhall 2016).
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it can be concluded that the effective leadership is essential
for ensuring the growth and smooth operation of any business especially in global context.
The leaders are responsible for directing and motivating or inspiring the people. Unlike the
domestic leaders, the leaders operating globally are required to be more efficient and aware
about every aspect as well as step they are going to take. In leading globally, the leaders

9IMPORTANCE OF EFFICIENT LEADERSHIP FOR GLOBAL CHANGE
required to be much more efficient in decision making, confident, self-aware, and
compassionate along with other essential qualities, such as motivating people to work and
contribute in way that is more efficient. Otherwise, the effect of one wrong step taken by the
global leader can leave a detrimental effect in global business scenario. The leaders are
required to be sensitive and compassionate towards the employees to ensure the positivity in
reaction from them. Thus effective leadership style proved itself as an inevitable part of the
management of business through proper management as well as control of the people and
situation both internally and externally. Specially in global business context the adoption of
efficient leadership style is indispensable as they used to control more diverse, complex kind
of work environment and workforce.

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